


he bruises coughs, he splutters pistol-shots

by swimthewholeriogrande



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Boys In Love, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Era, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pneumonia, Protectiveness, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-06 14:32:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16389527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: Crutchie gets sick, and Jack gets scared.





	he bruises coughs, he splutters pistol-shots

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Breezeblocks by alt-J

Crutchie, when he got sick, got it bad.

Jack didn't know if it was because of his naturally scrawny frame, or the remnants of the polio that had raged through him and destroyed his leg, but like clockwork as soon as it started to get cold, Crutchie would hit a wall. Not that Crutchie would ever admit it - his pride, although admirable, was also a pain in the ass to everyone who loved him. And no one loved him more than Jack.

So it hurt, it always hurt, when winter started to seep through the window panes of the lodging house and Jack had to watch Crutchie fade. Everyone got sick - hell, Jack had colds for weeks sometimes - but whatever went wrong in Crutchie at that time of the year could keep him from selling for days.

In December 1898, Jack woke up with Crutchie's burning face pressed to his neck and felt the sweat and heat of his fever; he rolled them both over to the light, as gently as he could, and Crutchie groaned.

"Cut it out," he rasped and oh, his light voice was so violently gravelled, "Jack, lemme sleep."

"Sick again, pal."

Crutchie's eyes cracked reluctantly open; his pupils were blown wide and blank. "No, I ain't." he replied stubbornly, and promptly jack-knifed with a coughing fit. It sounded like he was trying to get his lungs out of his throat. Jack helped him sit up, his own head swimming with exhaustion and worry, and rubbed his narrow back.

"Please, Crutchie," he said as softly as he could, "Let me take care of you. You're not well -"

Crutchie's eyes flashed. He swallowed the last of his coughs and growled, "Don't need no taking care of!" His leg, uncovered by the sheets, trembled and spasmed fretfully and Jack didn't know whether to take care of the cramps or the coughing, suspended between two ailments on the eternally ailed. 

Jack wanted so badly to keep Crutchie in bed, to keep both of them in that warm sleepy space in the early morning when they'd press so close it felt like a prayer; but he would never force Crutchie to do anything, not after seeing everyone who wasn't a newsie treat him like a fragile doll.

So he let Crutchie get ready to go and sell, his face white with two high spots of colour on his cheekbones. Jack walked right next to him on the way to the distribution gate. Crutchie leaned hard, grim, on his cane - his foot dragged against the hard frozen dirt and every so often his shoulders would jump with a barely-suppressed cough. Gruff grunts accompanied each one, but he was unable to clear his throat. Jack himself was starting to feel sick just from watching.

The Delanceys, as always, were boorish and unobservant and as hard on Crutchie as always; they spent the entire wait in the line trying to ignore the goading twins. Jack tried to shield Crutchie from it as much as he could, but it was hard to retaliate on his behalf and keep the shivering boy upright.

"Dumb crip is slow as always," Oscar sneered, "you feeling alright there?"

"Lay off," Jack snapped, feeling Crutchie's head droop against his shoulder, "he ain't well."

"Am so." Crutchie sighed, but it was weak and only Jack heard him. Morris faked a punch and withdrew it at the last second, and he winced, white-knuckled grip on his crutch tightening impossibly further.

"Damn right he ain't well." Morris' face was cruel. "He's sick - sick in the head!"

Jack snarled. "That is enough, you lousy -"

By this point the whole line had gone quiet as all the boys watched with trepidation. That meant that when Crutchie's explosive hacking fit sent him to his knees, and then to the ground as his bad leg gave out beneath him, it was as loud as a gunshot - the shuddering sound of blood blooming against Crutchie's teeth with every cough. 

-

The only positive thing about Crutchie's rapid decline - and it really was the only positive - was that he finally let Jack take care of him. It was a true testament to how sick he was that he didn't protest when Jack swept him completely off the ground at the distribution gate and carried him back to the lodging; just clawed weakly at Jack's shoulder whenever he needed to cough, like he thought Jack might want to put him down. As if Jack was ever letting him out if his sight again.

The building was deserted with all the other boys out selling, and the quiet made Jack uneasy with nothing to break it but Crutchie's harsh breathing. He set him down on the first bed he saw, unceremoniously dumping a pack of playing cards and a slingshot on the ground.

Crutchie scowled. "Penthouse." he rasped commandingly, and Jack had to laugh a little.

"Too cold, pal." He threw a blanket over Crutchie and folded one under his head, hand lingering on Crutchie's face to feel for fever. "Neither of us are selling for a while."

Crutchie's eyes were clear and watery; he blinked and sneezed once, and Jack saw the pink stains on his teeth and felt a wrenching sensation. "Aw, you worry too much, Jack." Crutchie shuffled up onto his elbows. "Can I have some water?""

But when Jack got it for him, he spluttered and choked on it, eyes rolling terrifyingly. Jack had to get into the bed with him and hit his narrow back to clear his throat. "Breathe," he kept saying, and it turned into, "Breathe, sweetheart, breathe."

"J - a - a - ack -"

"Don't talk." Jack leaned against the wall and pulled Crutchie against his chest, between his legs. Crutchie's hair tickled his chin, and he kissed the top of his head, almost absentmindedly. "I've got ya, pal."

When the fit finally subsided, Jack realised what he'd done - what he'd called Crutchie - and went very still, half expecting the other boy to shove him away in disgust. He became acutely aware of the way he was holding Crutchie, how tender and lover-like the position was, and wanted to die - but Crutchie just leaned against him, sick and sore, like he hadn't noticed. He was far too warm against Jack.

He was shivering. "M'tired."

"Go t'sleep, I said I've got you." Assured he wouldn't be shoved away, Jack let his eyes shut and held Crutchie tighter, and let himself drift.

He'd only meant to nap but when Jack woke up it felt far later and Crutchie had folded away from him, bent at the waist, wheezing. Jack rubbed the sleep from his eyes hurriedly and went to steady Crutchie; with every cough his body jumped and his bad leg kicked mindlessly.

"Easy," he started, but when he looked there was pink on Crutchie's teeth again, dripping to the floor, half-frothy saliva and half-blood. It was grotesque, and it made Jack's whole body tense with fear.

Crutchie was shivering but still burning hot to touch, a boy on fire. He tried to speak and let out a strangled sound, and then jerked again, his lungs seemingly in spasms.

"Oh, shit," Jack hissed, trying to smooth back Crutchie's sweat-soaked curls with one shaking hand and rub his back with the other, "shit, Crutchie, you must'a felt bad for days, why the hell didn't you come to me?"

Crutchie tried to scowl, but it looked like a grimace. He swallowed and gained a brief respite. "I was handling it, Jack."

"Yeah, I'll bet." Jack muttered; inwardly he was totting up his savings, trying to find some way to afford a doctor or at least pay a quack's assistant to have a look. If the other boys helped out, and Jack knew they would, they could at least get some cough syrup from the pharmacy. "Handling it like a hot rock."

Crutchie batted at him weakly. "I can feel your head spinning. I don't need any medicine or nothing." Even as he spoke he was leaning unconsciously into Jack's body. "I feel just dandy, cowboy."

He was joking now, and that comforted Jack a little. He ran a hand down Crutchie's side in a similar unaware movement, something so instinctual it felt like breathing. "You and me both." he snorted. "I'm gonna get you some water."

When he came back, Crutchie was asleep, rough and heavy breathing echoing through the cold room. Jack smiled but it was tinged with worry, and the slightest bit of guilt; he left the chipped cup on the floor and sat up in case of another fit, ready to protect Crutchie from his own wretched body no matter what it took.

-

The day dragged on, and then another and another; Jack watched the pay from each day slip through his hands, watched the boys around him move in silent, wary circles around Crutchie's bedside and foot the rent for both of them. Jack was unable to leave his side as his cough got worse and worse; the blood on his lips was darkening with every hour until he was spitting scarlet roses. He lapsed in and out of consciousness with guttural, deep-chested noises.

What little medicine they could afford only served to make the coughing less throaty; now it was just harsh, barking sounds that hurt Crutchie's throat. Jack's head ached from lack of sleep and the pain of watching it all unfold - something in the back of his head, in some nasty, dark hole in his heart, he thought the other boy would die. Choking on his own blood, on his own lungs, some animalistic death.

But when Crutchie was awake, Jack would never say it to him. He spent the whole time Crutchie was conscious telling him that he was going to be alright, that Jack was going to take care of him, and if pet names slipped in and they got closer than they should have, no one would know; Crutchie just stared and smiled with faded blue eyes, so unblessed by any cruel God, his body raging with something uncontrollable. Everything was hot and sick and fundamentally incorrect. 

If Crutchie died, Jack would simply cease. There would be nothing left at all for him.

Eventually enough was enough, and Jack left Crutchie with Race and showed up at the nearest doctor with all the money the newsies could scrape together - which was not nearly enough. His pride stung at the doctor's raised eyebrows, but there was nowhere else to go.

"I'm begging you, sir," he said, honest and flayed raw with anxiety, "He's my best friend." He's everything. "There's nothing more I can do by myself." I love him. "He's real bad." He is dying, he is already cold to touch, and if he goes I will follow.

Jack wasn't sure if it was the dirty coins he pressed into the doctor's hand, or the red speckled shadows on Crutchie's cough staining his collar, or maybe the sheer desperation he knew must have polluted every fibre of his body, but soon he was tugging the doctor back to the lodging house to deliver a diagnosis of advanced pneumonia. Crutchie was barely awake for the whole procedure; Jack had to open his slack mouth to press pills inside of it, fancy green ones the professional had brought.

It felt like an ultimatum - like 'all or nothing'. But Crutchie sweated and shook into the night, dry and rasping, the dried blood collecting in cracking brown sores around his mouth; every time Jack wiped it away, Crutchie would heave again, and they'd be back at square one.

It took another three days before Crutchie woke up again. His eyes were glazed and he clawed at Albert's hand, who was the one currently rubbing his back while Jack got something to eat, and started to shout.

Jack came skidding back just in time to hear Crutchie's screeching tone. "He'll be back any second!" the other boy was yelling, his fingers slipping and tangling in Albert's vest. "Get back into bed!"

"Jack!" Albert yelped above the noise. "You gotta hold him down!"

Jack ignored Albert, hustling him off the bed to move in close to Crutchie and steady his shoulders. "I'm here, sweetheart," he murmured, ignoring everyone around them, "what's wrong?"

Crutchie was blind and striking; his jaw was tight and trembling. "The bigger boys said he's coming back." he half-howled, his throat cracking with the strain. "Jack, please get back into bed. He'll kill you this time, honest, he's gonna break my leg please Jack -"

Jack blinked and he was in the Refuge, Crutchie begging him to hide while Snyder stormed just outside the door, his weak leg slipping off the bunk; Snyder kept telling them he was gonna rip 'that useless thing right off' and they were too young to know better, and Jack's black eye was swelling and his split lip bleeding - and he was out of bed because he was scrambling at the bars of the window, sucking in air, claustrophobic and terrified.

Then he blinked again. He was in the lodging house, seventeen, and Crutchie was still pulling at his shoulder. Jack swallowed hard to the present and lay down, bringing Crutchie to his chest. "I'm in bed," he soothed, "see? He's not coming."

"Jack," Crutchie sighed, heavy and wheezing and so low that no one could possibly hear, and so suddenly lucid, "I love you."

There was a perfect, crystalline moment of silence. Jack felt every muscle in his body relax in awe, and he looked down to focus on Crutchie's face; it was tired and pale but clear, determined, strength in every carved line. 

Jack could feel himself leaning, tipping on the edge of greatness. The precipice of the rest of his life. Dreamlike, he brushed his lips against Crutchie's forehead, and felt a breaking fever and a great heat in his own veins; Crutchie scowled slightly.

"You'll get ill," he muttered, and Jack growled, "I don't care." And this time, he kissed him properly, and everything was not alright yet - Crutchie's stained mouth, his noisy breath - but maybe everything would be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This took  
> SO LONG  
> to write  
> Please comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
